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Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Time to Downsize the Game Collection - So it Has Been Said, So it Shall be Done

So Rach, hereafter to be referred to as "The Wife", as she has used her wifely prerogative on me in regards to "clutter" has told me in no uncertain terms that I need to downsize my physical gaming collection. I thought I did pretty well last Saturday when I handed out 15 gaming books to my old gaming group, but it's just a start.

In truth, The Wife has a valid point. I am a "collector", not just of old but of new and everything in between. I have more stuff than shelf space, and although it has been suggested I get another small bookshelf to place on my desk, that is merely a stop gap measure.

First thing to go will be duplicates. Do I need every printing of the Castles & Crusades Player's Handbook? I have them, sadly. Maybe first printing and most recent. I've got a bunch of doubles from the various grab bags I've picked up over the past few Christmas season and of course D20 / Pathfinder versions of stuff I also own in Swords & Wizardry versions. Print copies of games or supplements I know I'll never get around to using that I also own in PDF (does not include any Frog God Games releases, as that stuff is collectible in my humble judgement.)

I figure I'll start the downsizing mid June, giving my old gaming group first pick. After that, who knows.

I guess I didn't help my cause when I offered to clear out space a week ago Sunday in the computer room / man cave for The Wife to do her yoga. Still, it's hard to argue with truth, and The Wife is right.

I simply have "too much shit". Besides, a happy wife is a happy life. I truly do love Rach, so if this makes her happy (and there is always the far reaches of the attic ;)

29 comments:

It's pretty freeing once you start. I too am at a point where I am storing books in a sealed container in the basement and I continue to buy books. I am keeping anything out of print or anything I have a full collection of. I am currently getting rid of books that I have copies of, books that I have 3 different printings of (C&C I'm looking at you), and stuff that I bought on Kickstarter because I wanted to support the artist or because I will never use it. My wife gives me the eye when I come in the house with new games, but as a fellow gamer she understands (and has a few games of her own on the shelf). This is all me, I need to down size my collection. Funny thing though, part of the sales money is going to purchasing new games or other hobby endeavours (right now I am saving up for a T5i camera and some better podcasting equipment).

I understand this completely. I started purging triples+ first. Then systems I care nothing about. Then whole companies that have pissed me off (long stories on a couple of those). Got down to a manageable number (says I), or closer to a reduced number (says she). ;-)

You sucker. I never give my wife that option. But I started downsizing a few years ago and it is very liberating. Especially if the funds for selling items go to a tangible cause....last year, I sold $1000 worth of gaming stuff to pay for a vacation with our grandkids. Something we will all remember and made possible by unused gaming supplies!

I donated 6 accounting boxes full of books to Goodwill. There will all of the old D&D books that I collected when I was young: Forgotten Realms God War, Icewind Dale, the dragon lance series, you name it. I kept 3 of those that were written by Gary Gygax in the Greyhawk series. The rest with tons of campy sci fi novels and other books went to a better home. The guy at good will was in awe as he opened up the boxes and kept saying "WOW! WOW! WOW! YOU SURE!?!"

They will goto a good home somewhere, and someone else will read them, if not that's 1/2 an ikea bookshelf I cleared out.

Note: The way to do it is two fold.

1. Get rid of duplicates. Easy place to start.2. Pick up the book, say to yourself "Does reading this make me happy." or "Do I remember reading this?" IF YES, then Keep. If NO, then donate.

Don't bother saying "Will I read this again?" as that's a trap question everyone will say YES to and your box of books will stay cluttered.

I managed to knock all the old books in an afternoon. Was amazed at all the space.

As a suggestion, local gaming groups that operate out of high schools or churches are always looking for stuff. I have myself donated goodies to local high school RPG groups, and it's all appreciated....remember, for a lot of those kids, a B2 isn't as ubiqitous as it is to jaded oldsters. Also, smaller local conventions (like NTRPG con) can use donations for prizes, auction items, and giveaways.

If this helps at all, I found the most effective way is to decide what to keep, not what to get rid of. Go through the whole collection end to end and pull out the stuff you want to keep. The rest goes.

That's how I cut down books from "fits in a large house" to "fits in an office in an apartment." I kept a few duplicates, because those dupes were useful and wanted and needed. The rest, gone.

I've switch to a play/read choice. Things I strongly think I'll use at a table I buy physically, everything else is digital. Had to actually pay for DropBox space mind, but since PDFs are usually cheaper I'm still saving money and space. I've started converting a few old but not awesome physical products to digital by giving them away at my games club and getting the PDF.

You sexist pig! We all know that women don't do this, marriage is rape culture, and you're a monster for doing this just like the Tabletop Library predicted! How dare you?! You've made Christopher Helton collapse onto his fainting couch!

You could always trade away stuff at a premium... Like 3 books you don't want for one you do. At least that way you clear out 66% and still get to collect what you don't have. I gave away a bunch of crud for some cool old JG and Fasa Traveller that way.

I am noted for collecting stuff among my friends however I done a few purges. I gave all Middle Earth stuff to a person I know that would appreciate it better than me. I got rid of all the WoD stuff except for a 1st printing Vampire the Masquerade book. Swept through my miscellaneous stuff and gave away things like the Alternity RPG. All my Forgotten Realms stuff went to another friend.

I did decide to keep the core books of all the editions of D&D I own. I did acquired some new copies of beloved games like 1st edition Fantasy Hero, Champions 2nd edition, and GURPS 2nd edition.

I generally box stuff up "just in case", but I have given dupe items to others in my gaming group (full set of 1e hardcovers to each, for example). Most of my 2e and 3x stuff is in boxville though, except for Greyhawk/Ravenloft/Al-Qadim.

I'm going to go through the purge myself this summer. I already started putting things to the side that I will never use, but I need to be pro-active and get rid of more. I'd love to sell some of it, even for a token amount, and giving it away to charity never works out tax wise for me.

There are things I will keep, like all my Call of Cthulhu stuff and AD&D stuff, but D&D 3.0 and a lot of my Pathfinder stuff is going. Also all of the miscellaneous one offs that I picked up over the years and thought were cool, but now I haven't looked at in a while, it's going to go.

Inasmuch as my courtship of Her included both of us being in a Champions campaign, and then my BattleBorn campaign for about two years, the concept of "you have too much gaming stuff" simply never manifested. But, as long as your games do go to a good home, you haven't lost anything.

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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (thank you Kickstarter) (edit) BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and will soon have some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep shipping shortly in my grubby hands awaiting a review..

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls (and still waiting on dT&T to ship).

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 48, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)